Monday, March 20, 2006
10:48 AM
From what I see, there're generally two types of people who sing publicly, ie singing in hearing distance of at least one other person. The first type sings publicly because he/she truly loves the song and sincerely wants to share the beauty and glory of the song, regardless of how badly he/she sings it. Normally, for this type of singer, their singing ability is inversely proportional to the extent of their facial expression.
The second type sings publicly because he/she truly loves his/her own voice and sincerely wants to share the beauty and glory of his/her voice.
I used to know someone from my camp who really loved the sound of his own voice. He doesn't really sing publicly very often, especially when he can be seen by everyone. Instead, he'd quietly sneak into the toilet while no one is looking, and then overflow the toilet with his bellowing voice.
I remember that I could never really make out what song he was actually really singing, but I distinctly remember hearing, from the corridoor outside the bunks, the intense sense of self-gratification expressed within the voice. He really loved the sound of his own voice, and this pleasure at hearing his own voice being echoed back to him (and out to us) in the toilet resonated very clearly in the tone and expression of his voice. I really couldn't help it, but the first words that came to my mind was 'aural *a**u**a*io*'. I told him that, and well, the thing is, it appeared to me that the only thing he seemed to be concerned with, despite my rather unkind remark, was what I really thought of his voice.
Hehe, I guess if anyone had a horrible voice, he/she wouldn't be able to force himself/herself to love it half as much as my friend does.
And then there was once, I was taking a taxi back to camp one early morning. As usual, I was feeling a little worried that the taxi driver might be one of those tired sleepy drivers (it must be really hard to stay awake and alert after one long night of taxi-ing around, life is hard). I was still nervously glancing at the old uncle in the driver's seat every now and then to make sure that he was not showing tell-tale signs of dozing off.
And then he started singing softly.
He was singing some chinese folk song with a very clear and crispy falsetto. It went on for about 5 minutes. And then he started a small conversation with me about his voice. Apparently, he was trained in some form of qigong in his youth, something called 'tu na gong', which allowed him to sing with 'seven different types of voices'. He could sing like a girl, with a consistent falsetto, he could sing like a deep-voiced man, and many more. A few of which he duly demonstrated to me while I rejoiced in the realisation that he was not likely going to doze off or grunt into sleep.
The old uncle really loved his own voice as well, because I couldn't really hear what he was singing, only that he was straining to let me hear the significant differences between his manly voice and his girly voice. I could almost see the glimmer in his eyes when he detected the slight look of amazement that I was trying to hide.
'If that Project Superstar don't have age limit, this old man would win it already. My voice, very tok kong one ok!'
...
Of course, there are people who belong to both categories, or not at all. And I love to irritate the crap out of the two types of singers as outlined above by singing crappily and loudly at the climax of their favourite songs, when the song is at its nicest, or the singer's voice is being stretched to sound its nicest.
Unfortunately, I never manage to irritate the people I go for KTV with very much, because they don't take their own singing so seriously...
ZL and Jan, it was fun, but that's about enough KTV I've had for the next 10 years. 6 hours leh, and only 3 people singing! That's like 2 hours per person! You're nuts!
Comments:
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1 comment)
Hahahahaha!
VEry fun to sing with Zichun hor Ziling!
Hahahaha!
No ZC- u dun irritate us- that's the whole point of KTV- if everyone is gg to sing 'seriously' then it's no fun- we are supposed to massacre songs and jump and shout- I really mean it- although I frown and shoot you dirty looks when u do that at times- that's cos I am really enjoying myself and I do that to BULLY you- HAHAHAHA! ( Kou shi xin fei!)
I nv sing with my sister at KTV before cos she's a serious singer...
Haha!
And hey- u can manage falsettoes too what- so what kind of 'gong' do u practise? Or rather u practise the " I had a great fall and lost my *" GONG?
ZL is now suffering from withdrawal symptoms already... So you cant wait ten years...
Why is yr title- I like KTV?
U like KTV is it? I thot u went cos we sorta coerced u to go. HAHAHA!
So now I know... Zichun actually LIKES KTV!
Woohoo!
Lion
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VEry fun to sing with Zichun hor Ziling!
Hahahaha!
No ZC- u dun irritate us- that's the whole point of KTV- if everyone is gg to sing 'seriously' then it's no fun- we are supposed to massacre songs and jump and shout- I really mean it- although I frown and shoot you dirty looks when u do that at times- that's cos I am really enjoying myself and I do that to BULLY you- HAHAHAHA! ( Kou shi xin fei!)
I nv sing with my sister at KTV before cos she's a serious singer...
Haha!
And hey- u can manage falsettoes too what- so what kind of 'gong' do u practise? Or rather u practise the " I had a great fall and lost my *" GONG?
ZL is now suffering from withdrawal symptoms already... So you cant wait ten years...
Why is yr title- I like KTV?
U like KTV is it? I thot u went cos we sorta coerced u to go. HAHAHA!
So now I know... Zichun actually LIKES KTV!
Woohoo!
Lion
# posted by 
: 2:07 PM
: 2:07 PM